


Bring It On Home

by obstinatrix



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, None - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-15
Updated: 2011-01-15
Packaged: 2018-10-17 06:19:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10588173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinatrix/pseuds/obstinatrix
Summary: Cas is  beginning to display emotions. This wouldn’t be so bad, were it not for  the fact that the emotions seem to be centring themselves on Dean. Dean  is oblivious, of course; Sam, on the other hand, is not. Sam’s never  tried his hand at matchmaking before, but it can’t be so hard, right?





	1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Bring It On Home, 1 of 2  
**Author:** [](http://obstinatrix.livejournal.com/profile)[**obstinatrix**](http://obstinatrix.livejournal.com/)  
**Recipient:** [](http://exmanhater.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://exmanhater.livejournal.com/)**exmanhater** in the Secret Angels IV exchange.  
**Pairing:** Dean/Castiel  
**Rating:** NC-17  
**Warnings:** None  
**Spoilers:** General through S4 and 5, but nothing specific.  
**Word Count:** 14,871  
**Notes/Prompt(s):** This ended up as a sort of conglomeration of the prompts I was given, taking little bits from all of them. So in this fic you will find: matchmaking; Sam and Cas joining forces to influence Dean (sort of); lots of pining and longing on Cas’s part; vague rom-com action, and (hopefully) an edge of BAMF!Castiel.

 **Summary:** _Cas is beginning to display emotions. This wouldn’t be so bad, were it not for the fact that the emotions seem to be centring themselves on Dean. Dean is oblivious, of course; Sam, on the other hand, is not. Sam’s never tried his hand at matchmaking before, but it can’t be so hard, right?_

 **NB** : This post is for archiving purposes only. This fic was originally posted anonymously, [here](http://community.livejournal.com/deancastiel/2328948.html), and all comments (and my replies to them) are there.

**One**

Castiel still wasn't clear on why the magazine was, as Sam had asserted, ' _typical_ , Dean; absolutely fucking typical of you. And completely useless.'

A cursory glance had shown, it was true, that it featured a considerable number of scantily-clad females: undoubtedly, a focus typical of Dean. Closer inspection, however, had proven the magazine to be utterly atypical of Dean's usual habits and tastes, in a variety of ways. Firstly, a lot of it seemed to be pink. Dean did not seem fond of pink things; indeed, Castiel even suspected him of particular avoidance of the colour (what Sam referred to as his 'overcompensating'). Moreover, it exhibited a certain investment in the intricacies of human emotional behaviour, something absolutely foreign to Castiel from his own interactions with Dean - and something, also, both useful and fascinating.

Dean had defended himself against Sam's accusations with regard to the publication - "What are you talking about, man? There's all kinds of crap in there about Relationships and Self Pleasure and shit. Says so right on the cover." He brandished the article in Sam's face, just to be clear.

Sam had appeared unconvinced. "Dean, it's for _women_. It's not going to help Cas deal with his Rising Angel problem."

"Yeah, well, it's got 100 Ways To Please Your Man In Bed, right? I'm sure he can work from that. Right, Cas?"

Cas had been, by this point, more lost than anything. He glanced uncertainly from Dean's expectant face to Sam's sceptical one. He had been far from sure of what he was being expected to agree with, but Dean's hopeful expression, all wide green eyes and eyebrows in a triumphal arch, was so - _compelling_. "...right."

"Right," Dean said, grinning, and slapped him on the back. "Okay then. I guess we're done here."

The answering expression that had materialised then on Sam Winchester's face had not been a grin. Castiel wasn't sure he was yet equipped to properly interpret it. But perhaps, with the aid of the magazine (perhaps, as Dean insisted, useful after all) he might begin to figure it out.

After he'd dealt with the Other Thing.

The Other Thing had been Dean’s name for it from the moment Cas had brought up the issue with him, over a week ago, now. Really, the issue had been coming up (rather literally) for a good while longer than that, but Cas had paid very little attention to it until it had begun to - well - to _hurt_. It was more of an ache, really, low and strange like a headache in some ill-defined part of him, but Castiel didn’t like it. It made him feel urgent, somehow, as if there were something very important he had forgotten to do before leaving the house. As if, maybe, he’d left the gas on and now could not get in to turn it off and prevent an untimely explosion. Was this, he’d asked Sam, an analogy that might make sense to humans?

Sam, for some reason, had found it far more humorous than Cas thought appropriate, although he had calmed himself after a minute. “I don’t know if you want to _avoid_ an explosion, here, Cas,” he said slowly, biting his lip so that his words sounded a little mushy and strained around the edges. Humans seemed to do that a lot when explaining their bizarre ways to him. Cas wondered whether it was some sort of superstitious custom. “Why don’t you go ask Dean about it? He’ll explain it to you properly. You guys already covered the difference between day time clothes and pyjamas, and why Dean thinks it’s okay to sleep naked even when it’s totally inconsiderate, right? This is really a very logical next step.”

The strained pull to Sam’s voice didn’t seem to be dissipating, which Cas always found a little unnerving, but he looked earnest enough. Sam Winchester always looked earnest. It was very disarming. He had looked earnest when he had first explained to Dean that it would be a good thing if he were to educate Cas a little about human behaviour, so they never again had to find him showering in trenchcoat, suit and shoes. Dean had been reluctant, but Sam’s earnest face seemed to hold a strange sway over him, and the outcome had been good - now, for example, Castiel knew that one had to pay for things one wanted in gas stations, and not simply attempt to leave with packets of Cheetos stuffed into one’s pockets. Sam’s earnest face, Cas concluded, usually led to good things.

So he had asked Dean - casually, in the dairy aisle of a rundown Walmart, while Dean was explaining why only pussies ever bought skim.

“Dean,” he’d said, “I think I understand about the milk now. If we’re done here, do you think we could cover how to quell bodily urges?”

Dean almost dropped a quart of milk (full-fat, naturally). When he recovered himself, he was clutching it protectively to his chest like a baby, or possibly more like a human shield. Cas couldn’t be sure. “Urges?”

“Of the loins,” Cas explained, patiently. Dean screwed up his face in protest, and glanced furtively up and down the empty aisle.

“Of the - dude, I am not going to explain your _dick_ to you, okay? You don’t need a frickin’ road map to jerk off.”

“To - ?” Cas tilted his head to one side, curious. “Are such explanatory maps available?”

Dean had become swiftly impatient. The next thing Cas knew, he was half-running to keep up as Dean stalked across the supermarket, coming to an abrupt halt in the newsprint aisle. “Here,” he said gruffly, after a moment’s inspection of the shelves. “Road map.”

Cas had inspected the magazine in his hands for a long few seconds, eyes widening. “Thank you.”

“Welcome. And now let’s never speak of this again, all right?”

And, because he had not really been offered any other option, Cas had agreed. Sam’s intervention, when he and Dean had returned to the motel, had done little to alter Dean’s stance on the issue. Later that evening, from his own room (which Sam had procured for him, claiming that the least they could do for Cas was give him some space, if Dean wasn’t going to be any goddamn help) he had heard them arguing through the wall.

Cas sighed, and looked back to the magazine. Dean seemed to be becoming impatient with regard to The Other Thing. Cas wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much. Sam alternated between pointed looks away from Cas’s crotch area and quiet suggestions that he visit the bathroom, when the problem arose, but Dean seemed to find it altogether more distasteful. Perhaps this was only because it seemed to happen so much more frequently when Dean was close to him. Dean didn’t seem to like that at all. This afternoon, he had reared up particularly violently from his narrow little bed when Cas had seated himself awkwardly beside him. “Goddammit, Cas, didn’t you figure out how to take care of that yet?”

“Maybe,” Sam said, slow and pointed, “he could use a little more help than that goddamn magazine, Dean, like I _said_.”

“I didn’t need any help!” Dean pointed out, gesticulating wildly. “Hell, _you_ didn’t need any help, beyond ‘try putting your hand actually inside your underwear, bitch’, and you’re - well - sexually retarded!”

Sam stood up abruptly, wearing that expression that said he wasn’t sure where to begin with the many objectionable things Dean had just suggested. “I am _not_ \- oh, for Chrissake.” Sam sighed, hands up and spread as if in surrender. “Look, Dean - I was a thirteen year old kid, okay? Cas isn’t a kid. He’s never been a kid. He’s a frickin’ _angel of the Lord_ wearing a devout, promise-ring tax accountant. Cut him some slack, yeah?”

Dean frowned. “I gave him a magazine!”

“And we already know what I think about that!”

Cas glanced from one of them to the other, uncomprehending.

“I could give him a _different_ kind of magazine - “

“Or you could _talk him through it_?”

Dean put a hand over his eyes. “Jeez, Sam, if it bothers you that much, why don’t _you_ help him?”

“Because,” Sam said, low and firm, “I think he wants _your_ help. Dude, he’s _your_ angel.”

The look that appeared on Dean’s face after that was - well. Castiel couldn’t read it, but something about it distressed him. Heat was rising in Dean’s cheeks, and that set an answering pull tingling at the base of Cas’s spine, even while prickles of discomfort chased each other over the nape of his neck.

“I can manage without,” he announced, standing up. “Obviously this is something too intimate to be discussed further. I do not wish to cause anyone any further discomfort.” He opened his trenchcoat, revealing the magazine tucked into the inside pocket. “If thirteen year old boys are able to figure this out on their own, I’m sure I can, too.”

Sam spread his hands in silent protest. Dean glowered at the floor. Cas indulged himself in a little disappearing act, even though his head ached dully when he rematerialised on the other side of the wall. Pointless, really, but sometimes the only way to soothe your pride was to remind people of all the ways in which you really were less ignorant and more useful than a thirteen-year-old. Really.

For a moment, he simply stood there while the blood resettled itself behind his eyes, breathing heavy and irritable through his nose. The blood between his legs, though, did not resettle with his anger, the dull throb of it a taunt to him now, and a challenge. Castiel sat down abruptly on the end of the bed, his legs slightly spread to accommodate the swollen heat of his groin. On the other side of the wall, the deep timbre of Dean’s voice rumbled on, Sam’s sharper tones rapping over it, evidently displeased. Castiel sighed, and lowered himself down onto his back.

The ceiling seemed to loom over him, an off-white expanse whose imperfections mocked his inadequacies. Next door, Dean was talking again, the low hum of his voice audible, if indistinct. Cas swallowed, feeling the blood pulse in his loins. Tentatively, he pressed his hand there; felt the rush of heat throb again against his palm, albeit through two layers of fabric.And, yes, the pressure was _good_ , a clear step in the right direction, if the responses of this vessel were to be believed; the way his hips rocked up without conscious signal, seeking a firmer touch. Castiel indulged himself in this desire, sliding his hand down a little further between his spread legs, pressing firmly, and then drawing it up again until the vessel bucked into the touch. This was, after all, a task entirely for the purposes of relieving the vessel, Castiel mused. It seemed sensible to allow himself to be guided by its instincts, its natural impulses. The principle of the thing did not seem to be beyond the mindless drives of this body, even with its human occupant departed; perhaps the magazine’s benevolent advice would prove, after all, unnecessary.

His clothing, though. He remembered what Dean had said - _try putting your hand actually inside your underwear, bitch._ The diffuse pressure of his hand and wrist were a vague suggestion only of what his body sought. Evidently, this task correctly required nudity, an untrammelled communication between fingers and flesh. Castiel had learned already about clothing, about the boundaries between the man and his garments, and although buttons continued to be something of an affront to his sensibilities, he reached down to fumble resignedly with his fly; shoved his trousers roughly down his thighs. Freed from the constraints of the flat-fronted suit pants, Cas’s cock, he now saw, swelled obscenely, the fabric of his undershorts so distended that the waistband pulled away from his skin. Cas shifted his hand, the heel of it ghosting up the heated length of him where it tented the material, and the increase in sensation was so unexpectedly great that he whimpered in reaction. The scent of his groin was detectable now, too, musky and thick. Cas took a deep breath, inhaling, and peered at the head of his cock, making a bid for freedom.

“Inside,” he reminded himself, quietly, “your underwear. Inside.”

It was ridiculous, really, to speak when there was nobody to hear it. Castiel knew this, but the fact remained that this vessel seemed to find the illogical habit soothing, and at this moment, Castiel needed to be calm. Carefully, so carefully, he set his fingertips to the fine skin over one hipbone; trailed them slowly over the shallow concavity of his stomach, dipping just slightly beneath his waistband. Beneath his touch, his skin leaped and shivered, sharp rolling sparks spiralling outward from the point of contact. His cock strained with his closeness, leaping of its own accord like some sentient, some desperate, despairing thing.

“Patience,” Castiel told it (for there was nobody to listen), and slid his right hand, firm and swift, into his undershorts, down to grip the base of his cock.

The surge of his body at that simple touch, the way it reared upward into his hand, caught Cas off guard; left him gasping on the rocks of the sensation. It took him a moment to realise that, while the circle of his fingers was still loose and unmoving, his cock was, nevertheless, moving already through his fist, back and forth with the involuntary rocking of his hips. It was good, again, a good, _right_ sort of feeling, and Cas sustained it, intensified it, tightening his grip. The strange thing was, or seemed to be, that the goodness could be felt not only under his hand, in the heated sheath of fingers on his flesh, but _everywhere_ : thrumming in his stomach, prickling up the side of his neck so that his head arched backward; creeping over the arches of his feet. Cas clenched his toes within his shoes, as if he could channel the sensation back towards its source, redouble it with reciprocal pressure. “Oh,” he gasped out; rolled his hips and half-choked on the resulting jolt of feeling, a fierce wave of spiked heat that made him arch his back, chin upraised, a cry indistinct on his lips. “Oh!”

Evidently, then, Castiel was at least as capable as a thirteen year old boy. Something about this was working.

The human body, he thought, with its ingrained knowledge, was a fascinating and a troubling thing. The pistoning motion into which his hips had settled was not something he had learned, but simply something his flesh knew. Was it the fundamental sin within the vessel that carried that knowledge? Castiel wondered, half-consciously, as he shivered and tightened his fingers around himself, whether a vessel’s sin was not cancelled out, somehow, by the presence of grace. If this were so, could the instinct be a heavenly one? It seemed strange, that such knowledge should come from heaven, when those beings full of grace would never be touched by it. Humanity and the Host, grace and the Fall, were points of difficulty for Castiel at the best of times, but now the twisted logic of his argument swam behind his eyelids in dull spots of colour as he rocked into his hand. The knowledge was there, said his body; its source did not matter. Cas’s fingers shivered apart on an upstroke, thumb sweeping half-accidentally over the head of his cock, and the riptide of pleasure that resulted pressed his conscious mind into agreement.

And it seemed impossible, that there should be yet more to this; that the constant thrum of heat in his blood should leap still further when he thumbed the leaking crown, smearing the fluid there down to ease his attentions to the shaft. The pistoning motion of his hips was becoming erratic, his ankles and feet seeking to press down against something even as his pelvis torqued in reaction, wanting something more than Cas was giving. It was what his body wanted, this stroking of his fingers up and down the slick shaft of his cock from the root to the oversensitive tip, but it was not _enough_ ; it was not _everything_. Castiel bit back a frustrated sound, feeling the need for _something else_ in some strange, indefinable space behind his sternum; floating somewhere just out of his eyeline. He sank his teeth into his lower lip, and struggled towards consciousness, trying to recall anything he had read that he might be forgetting. The physical urges of his body were, very evidently, all in play, but the magazine, he was sure, had suggested additional factors.

 _Fantasies_. That was it; the memory burst through the haze of his pleasure in fragments of pink and bold type. _The most important sex organ is the brain!_ the article had informed him, cheerily and unequivocal. But, where the part of the penis in sexual gratification was apparently quite straightforward, the part of the brain seemed more obscure. With what, Castiel thought frustratedly, should he attempt to occupy his thoughts? Dean, he supposed, would fixate upon the unclothed female form; the breasts of the barkeep from the evening before, burgeoning under her blouse, or the way her ass looked in her jeans as she walked away. Castiel attempted, accordingly, to summon an image in his mind. The girl that emerged was very nicely put together, her clothing skimpy and her smile inviting. Castiel did not understand the lack of interest his penis showed in the image. If anything, the exercise of creating his vision seemed to have pushed that Something a little further out of reach, the fantasy a distraction from his goal. Either the magazine was wrong, then, or his interpretation of its instructions had been fallacious. Castiel sighed, and tightened his fingers, redoubling his efforts.

It was ridiculous that there should be things of which he was incapable, things that human beings like Dean Winchester managed with ease every day. After all, his body was equal to theirs, and his mind was superior; there was no reason why he should be unable to do everything humans did. But there was a sensuality to Dean, something earthy and unhurried about the way he moved, the way he held himself, that made it very simple to imagine him doing this, fisting his cock with a slick-sticky ease that made his body roil with pleasure. The image seemed so natural that Cas’s own body flushed too, as if in sympathy, a thick pulse of heat dragging through him from his toes to the sweat at his hairline. For Dean, no doubt, this was second nature; no fully-clothed fumbling for him, anxious and struggling; not when he could spread himself naked on his unmade bed, sweat shining in the hollow of his throat when his head fell back in ecstasy. The thick silver ring flashing against the heat of Dean’s cock; the smoothness of it hard against Dean’s nipples as he explored the newness of himself, the unblemished perfection that Castiel had remade. Dean’s hand on his own flesh was so easy a thing,uncomplicated and expert and beautiful, and Castiel’s own fingers echoed it. In his mind, Dean’s long body was taut with tension, his breathing coming harsh, half-vocalised, as Castiel’s was, a sound with every stroke. Dean shivered with it; glowed with it; thrust his hips right up from the bed and into his hand as his climax spilled itself, copious and white over his hand.

It was a moment before Castiel recognised that the cry still dying away on the air had not been Dean’s, but his own. The crest of his efforts had caught him up like a wave, like grace, like light tearing out of him in every pore, and now his stomach was slick with his emissions, growing tacky. Castiel took heaving breaths, and trailed his fingers through it, curious. His body felt numb, detached, as if he were not quite touching the mattress beneath him.

From next door, after a moment, there came the sound of voices again, low-pitched, debating. The tone of the Dean-timbre was exultant. Sam’s voice, in response, sounded more sceptical, unwilling to be drawn. Even as the last vestiges of his bliss ebbed out of him, Castiel remembered that cry, the force with which his climax had ripped it from his throat. He sighed. Evidently, Dean had discerned that his efforts had been successful, and was pleased. Castiel was unsure why this realisation should make him feel so - _disgruntled_ \- but uncertainty did not change the facts. Castiel did not wish to return to the others while Dean sounded like that. He did not wish, in fact, to leave this room at all.

He sighed again, heavily, and rolled over onto his stomach, pressing his face into the pillow.

*  
Castiel stayed pointedly in his own room for the next fourteen hours and forty-five minutes. Some instinct - whether his own or his vessel’s, he no longer knew or cared - told him that emerging after a period of sleep was the best way to evade a knowing glance from Dean, a snide comment. Potentially, of course, this would not be entirely successful, but it was worth the attempt.

As it happened, Dean was too sleepy at first to remember all the things he had, no doubt, thought of saying the previous evening, and on the one hand, this was excellently suited to Castiel’s purposes. On the other, a sleepy Dean was a languid, half-dressed tumble of _boy_ , tousle-haired and soft, and the fact that this now made Castiel want, with a very definite sort of wanting, to push him back down onto the bed and jack him to climax was problematic.

So Castiel’s comfort was limited.

By the time Dean had been urged gently towards a cup of coffee, drowsy blankness giving way to knowing looks and slow, crooked smirks, Castiel was actively agitated. He squirmed in his seat at the little diner across the freeway from the motel, staring down his teacup like the barrel of a gun. Dean, God flay him, noticed the avoidance immediately.

“Hey.” Castiel could hear the grin in his voice even before Dean’s foot collided, under the table, with his ankle; and wasn’t it strange, that an expression could be so unmistakably audible? “So, sounded like you hit it out of the park last night, huh?”

Dean winked elaborately. Sam glanced at his brother, brows drawing together, and then returned his attention hastily to his bowl of fruit.

Castiel looked back at Dean with studied incomprehension. “I hit nothing.”

He was well aware of the common usage of baseball-derived terms as metaphors for sexual endeavours in American English, in constant currency for decades, but Dean was often easy to confuse in this way. Castiel had no wish to engage him.

Dean, however, looked undeterred, digging his elbow into Sam’s side and grinning more broadly. “You didn’t, huh? Coulda sworn you hit something a little like heaven.”

He was doing that thing he sometimes did, where his face scrunched itself up smugly, eyebrows gesticulating, head nodding, lips pursing outwards through the grin. Castiel felt a not entirely human desire to smite.

“Good goin’, Cas,” Dean said. “We’ll make a man outta you yet.” He leaned back in his chair, kicking out his feet. One of them - whether by accident or design, Castiel could not tell - ended up between Cas’s ankles. He felt himself flush, which only exacerbated his discomfort.

“ _Dean_ ,” Sam said, cautioning. Cas dug his fingernails into his palms, and stood up.

“If I ever decide to descend to your level, Dean, you will be the first to know.”

His tone was cold, but Dean only tipped his head a little to the side, and laughed. Castiel pressed his lips together, irritated. His fists twitched, indignantly and entirely without his permission, at his sides. On the far side of the diner, a row of ketchup bottles leaped spontaneously from a shelf.

By the time Dean and Sam were done craning their necks to see what had happened, Castiel had disappeared.

*

When he returned, a little calmer, at around seven-thirty, Dean was shaving the underside of his jaw in the bathroom mirror. Castiel stood quite still, just behind his left shoulder, and watched. This was fine for about thirty seconds, until Dean half-turned to pull the shaving cream across the counter, realised he was not alone, and had his fist most of the way towards Cas’s face before he had fully processed the fact that his unexpected companion was not a demon.

“You are shaving,” Cas commented, lowering Dean’s fist and uncurling his own fingers from it.

“No shit, Sherlock!” Dean retorted, sharp and scowling.

Castiel didn’t bother pretending not to understand the reference. There wasn’t an angel in the Host who hadn’t encountered Mr Holmes at some point or other. He made himself very useful.

“I was under the impression that shaving was a morning activity,” Castiel observed.

Dean shrugged. He had, Castiel noticed, apparently recovered from his surprise, and was now rinsing the razor under the faucet. “Doesn’t seem to be much of an activity for you at all,” he commented. “Which, by the way, we might have to change. Getting a little stubbly round the edges, there, Cas.”

Castiel frowned, and brought up a hand to investigate. Sure enough, there was a distinct edge of roughness under his thumb as he traced the contour of his jawbone, scratchy against his skin. “This has never happened before,” he said, consternated.

“Like a lotta things, then,” Dean pointed out, smiling at him, not nastily. “‘s okay. I’ll show you. Then, if we can get you all nice and smooth again, you can come hit the hotspots with me. Huh?”

Castiel tilted his head, considering. The tone of Dean’s voice was light, now; pleasant. Castiel liked Dean’s voice when it was like this, all warm and obliging. It made him feel warmed and obliged, and that was good. And Dean had ceased making baseball references. Perhaps Sam had berated him for his behaviour in the diner; or perhaps Dean had sensed his error all on his own, and was showing contrition, in his own way. In any event, Cas no longer felt any inclination to smite him.

“I would like that,” he conceded. He glanced around the small bathroom. “Would it be easier if I sat down?”

“Uh.” Dean scratched his head. “Well, you’ll probably need the mirror, if you don’t want to end up covered in cuts.”

Cas frowned slightly. “I thought you were going to show me?”

Dean’s eyes widened. “You want me to - ?” He paused, breathed, and Cas could almost _see_ Sam’s influence, there. _Just - step back, Dean, okay? Be patient with him. He’s not a kid, but he’s not a man, either. You can’t just expect him to know all the stuff we know, if nobody ever showed him._

“Okay,” Dean said, after a second. “I guess.” He shrugged. “I shaved Sammy his first time. Easier to know what you’re trying to do yourself when you’ve got what it’s meant to feel like for reference.”

He ushered Cas towards the closed lid of the toilet, razor in hand. Castiel noticed, as he sat, that there was something oddly like a blush creeping up Dean’s cheeks. Strange.

“Lift your chin,” Dean said, clipped and blunt. He had raised his hand, fingers poised by Castiel’s jaw. Cas wanted, with a sudden, visceral wanting, to feel those fingers on his skin. He lifted his face.

“Is this suitable?”

“Sure, that’s great,” Dean said, absently. His fingers moved away, fumbling with the lid of the shaving cream, and Cas suppressed a pang of disappointment. The next moment, though, they were back, covered in white foam, and Castiel had barely time to breathe before the foam was being smeared across the lower part of his face, Dean’s hands brisk and expert as they worked it into his jaw and around his mouth. “Don’t talk,” Dean added, grinning.

Castiel pressed his lips together and widened his eyes, to demonstrate his acquiescence. Dean seemed satisfied.

“Okay. Kids are normally taught to start out going _with_ the grain, all right? But that’s ‘cause their stubble starts out kinda fine, and their faces are all sensitive and shit, and I think we’re past that here. So I’m just gonna do it against the direction of growth - “ he demonstrated, slow pull of the razor up from Cas’s jawline over his cheek “ - ‘cause that’s quicker. It’s the way most guys do it.” He shook the foam and hair from the razor into the sink, rinsed it, and returned it to Cas’s face. Cas hummed understanding.

Dean was quick with the razor, casually expert. He didn’t hold onto Castiel’s face the entire time, somewhat to Cas’s disappointment, but from time to time he would steady it with fingers under his jaw, or on the back of his neck, gripping. The smell of him, from this close, was overwhelming and everywhere, warm and inviting as a waiting bath. Cas sighed through his nose.

“So,” Dean said, as he worked the razor up towards Cas’s left ear, “I’m gonna have plenty more to show you tonight.” He winked. It was the elaborate wink again. Castiel felt suddenly uneasy.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” Dean craned his neck, stretching to see what the razor was doing under the bolt of Cas’s jaw. His fingers curled around the nape of Cas’s neck, after a moment, tilting his head gently sideways, giving himself more room to manoeuvre. His fingertips were warm in the soft hair above Cas’s collar, and for a moment, Cas forgot his suspicions, leaning into the sensation.

“I mean, you’ve got the basic mechanics down, right?” Dean went on. “And it wasn’t exactly difficult, was it? I was kinda surprised you didn’t just go right off like a rocket, your first time, but hey, I guess if you’ve already got the stamina built in, that’s even better.”

It took a moment for Castiel’s mind to work its way back out of the haze into which Dean’s ministrations had submerged it. When the words processed, he glanced up sharply at Dean’s face; but there was no mocking smile there. Cas frowned. Perhaps Dean was, after all, simply curious, anxious to know that all was well. If that were true, there could be no benefit to anyone in a refusal to respond.

“It was not overly difficult, no,” Cas agreed. Dean’s thumb was under his ear, now, urging his face in the other direction, and he blindly obliged. “There was a moment when it seemed as if I had stranded myself on some sort of inescapable plateau, but I remembered that the magazine had suggested the construction of fantasies as a means of combating that sort of issue.”

Dean did laugh at that, but more in easy triumph than derision. He slapped his thigh. “I _knew_ that magazine would be useful.” He shook his head, and resumed his task, still smiling. “So, what’d you come up with, huh? Cheerleaders? Hot nurses?” He winked. “Or were you indulging that little thing you got going for Ellen?”

“I did attempt to begin with images of the bartender you were admiring the evening before last,” Cas admitted, dreamily. The scrape of the razor over the line of his jawbone was soothing, comforting. It was difficult to think clearly through the sensation. “However, ultimately I found it most efficacious to visualise you stimulating yourself. It was as if the imagined climax acted as a trigger for the physical one. Is that common?”

Castiel noticed the sudden absence of the razor at his jaw before he registered the taut silence that had fallen. He frowned, and opened his eyes. Dean was staring back at him, eyes wide in what might have been horror, razor poised in his hand. “Dean?”

Dean took a step back, and set the razor down on the counter. He looked as if he was struggling for breath. “That,” he managed, after a long moment, “is not - _common_ \- okay? That’s just - you’re not supposed to think about other guys jerking off while you jerk off. That’s not how it works.” He shook his head. “I know it’s not your fault, when you don’t exactly have much to draw from, but there’s an easy solution to that, okay?”

He drew a hand over his face. It did not escape Cas that the hand was trembling finely.

“Bar,” Dean said, firmly. “Five minutes. We’re gonna fix this.”

And without another word, he strode out of the bathroom, leaving Cas alone with his partially-shaven face and a growing sense of impending doom.

*  
The closest bar was a dubious-looking thing by the side of the road that looked more like an enormous tin can than a slick and buzzing hotspot, but the neon sign blinking by the door promised beer at obscenely low prices, so, naturally, it was stuffed to the gills with people. Dean eyed it through the driver’s side window with an expression of grim determination.

“No way are we dragging Cas in there,” said Sam.

The door of the establishment opened as they watched, and a blonde girl in a minuscule dress stumbled out of it into the leaked square of yellow light on the sidewalk. “Hot chicks,” Dean protested, spreading his hands.

The girl tottered a few steps, swayed worryingly, and then proceeded to vomit the contents of her stomach into the grass.

“Classy,” Sam said, dryly.

“Eh,” Dean returned, switching off the engine. “Happens everywhere.” He slid unconcernedly out of the car, slamming the door behind him. “C’mon, Cas. Let’s go get some.”

Truthfully, Dean was almost surprised that Cas was still here. After their little disagreement in the bathroom, he’d half expected to go back five minutes later and find the place empty, only the sense of Cas’s disapproval hanging in the air like a scent. But Cas had followed him, eventually - although not without a couple of cuts on the side of his face where he’d failed to finish what Dean started - and gotten into the car as directed. And okay, yeah, there was something about his pinch-lipped silence that made the hairs on the back of Dean’s neck prickle uneasily, but that was probably just ‘cause Cas was embarrassed. After all, the guy had a right to be. Everything would be easier when they’d gotten him off somewhere with some good-time girl (or two), and he had things straight in his head again. Dean didn’t anticipate having much trouble finding someone who’d go for Cas, provided he kept his mouth shut and didn’t start babbling in Enochian or some shit while he was fucking her. He was handsome enough, despite the majorly uncool outfit he refused to part with - all pre-fingered bedhair and eyes like endless pools, or whatever, and that _mouth -_

Dean jerked open the back door of the car and thought really hard about breasts. He obviously needed to get laid. “Come _on_ , Cas.”

“If he doesn’t want to go with you,” Sam said, from inside the car, “I can’t say I blame him, Dean. You can probably get gonorrhoea just from breathing the _air_ in there.”

“I want to go,” Castiel said, calmly, expressionless. He climbed out of the car, and looked at Dean. And - _looked_ \- at Dean. Dean squirmed, and felt suddenly desperate for Sam to join them, even though Sam was a cock-blocking loser who thought research was more interesting than pussy.

“I think I’ll wait here,” Sam said. Dean made outraged eyebrows at him. Sam responded with a bitchface that brooked no argument, and Dean sighed heavily.

“ _Fine_. Whatever. You stay here and read about your frickin’ dragons, see if I care. Just don’t mess up my car.”

Sam waved his hand, signalling them to get the fuck on with it.

Dean felt Castiel’s eyes on the back of his neck all the way to the bar.

Apparently, when Cas said ‘I want to go with you’, what Cas actually _meant_ was ‘I want to come stand creepily close to you and wither everyone who looks at you with my laser eyes’ - or at least, that was pretty much the best Dean could come up with, under the circumstances. He tried tending to the situation with a couple of doubles, but even though the lights looked a little brighter now, Cas still looked exactly as pissy as he had before. And he was still so close he was breathing on Dean’s fucking _neck_. Dean’s neck was _sensitive_ ; it sent all kinds of fucked up messages to other parts of his body, whoever’s breath it was making him goosepimply, and the last thing they needed was for Cas to get the wrong idea. _Again_.

“Dude,” Dean said, when he couldn’t stand it any more, “I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think _anyone’s_ getting laid tonight if you don’t stop staring down every chick who so much as looks over. Plus - “ he waved a hand, indicating the barely-there distance between them “ - I’m sorry, but this looks a little gay.”

Cas’s face darkened. Literally _darkened_ , right there while Dean watched, and if he’d thought Cas looked pissy before, it was nothing to the way he looked now, with his brows furrowing and his jaw set and his eyes glinting dangerous steel in the cheap striplight glare. He looked as if he might have taken a menacing step forward, if there’d been anywhere left to step. Dean swallowed.

“At the moment,” Cas said, in a voice as dark as his expression, “I am very far from gay, Dean.”

Dean blinked. That was - well. Uh. “Good,” he got out, nodding his head encouragingly. “That’s good. But you just need - “

“There’s nothing _good_ about it!” Cas’s hand came down on the bar with a _crack_ no burst of human irritation could have produced. Dean was suddenly, creepingly, unhappily reminded that Cas, despite recent developments, wasn’t just some guy with behavioural difficulties. Cas was someone you really didn’t want to see wrath from. Dean licked his lips nervously.

“Look, Cas, I just - “

“You _just_.” Cas’s other hand found purchase on the edge of the bar, too, and somehow Dean had ended up between them, caged in the unforgiving embrace of Cas’s arms. The edge of the bar pressed into his back, and Cas was still fucking breathing _right_ there on the side of his neck. Except, now Dean’s quietly pissy companion was gone, and in his place was a very, _very_ unhappy angel. “You always _just_ , Dean. You were _just_ teasing. You were _just_ trying to explain. Well, I am _just_ somebody trying to figure out all this complicated, _ludicrous_ human _shit_ that I’m only dealing with because of _you_ , because of what I’ve _done_ for you, and I _know_ you’re disgusted by the fact that I want you, you backward, bigoted little self-loathing jerk, but the least you can do is accept that it’s your own fault, and show me some fucking _respect_.”

Dean was very aware that he must look utterly ridiculous, mouth opening and closing soundlessly, heart thumping a furious tattoo in his throat. But before he could find it in himself to say anything at all, Cas’s fingers were twisting in the collar of his jacket, lifting him with terrifying ease, and slamming him down onto the bar hard enough that his teeth rattled. And then he was leaning in, leaning _over_ him, all hot breath and bared teeth and the violent blue of his eyes, hissing, “I built you up from _rot_ , Dean Winchester. Sometimes I wonder why the _hell_ I bothered, will of God or not.”

When Castiel released him, it was violently, so that Dean’s head snapped back painfully, colour flaring behind his eyes. The next thing he knew, he was sprawled alone on the bar, dishevelled and humiliated and (what the fuck) tenting his jeans.

The weight of the stares of the people around him was like a physical pressure on his throat, stopping his breath. Dean tried a smile, and got stoniness and a couple of leers in response. Yeah, not so much that, then. There didn’t even seem to be any sympathetic chicks lining up to come kiss him better - whether because they thought he’d just been soundly beaten in a fight, or because they thought Cas was his overbearing _boyfriend_ , Dean really didn’t want to know.

He _did_ know that this was absolutely not how he’d wanted to end his night.

God _dammit_.

He heaved himself off the bar, threw a last, desperate little smile of apology at the glowering barman, and scuttled out in search of the sanctuary of the Impala.

[Part 2](http://obstinatrix.livejournal.com/52777.html#cutid1)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Cas is beginning to display emotions. This wouldn’t be so bad, were it not for the fact that the emotions seem to be centring themselves on Dean. Dean is oblivious, of course; Sam, on the other hand, is not. Sam’s never tried his hand at matchmaking before, but it can’t be so hard, right?_

**Two**   
  
Turned out, Sam didn’t feel much like providing sanctuary. The look on his face, when Dean pulled open the car door, was murderous.   
  
“What?” Dean demanded, belligerent in defeat.   
  
“You know what,” Sam muttered, closing the lid of his laptop with immoderate force.   
  
“Do not,” Dean lied, just to be contrary. Sam snorted. Dean pointedly ignored it in favour of starting the engine and pulling the car back onto the freeway with undue care.   
  
“What the hell did you say to him?” Sam demanded, when they were halfway back to the motel.   
  
“Oh, you’re talking to me now?”   
  
“Don’t be a jerk.” Sam scowled. “Although it seems like that’s your _default_ right now, or something. What the hell is your problem, Dean?”   
  
“What problem?” Dean demanded. “I have no problem! No problems at all! None!” He spread his hands in clear indication of his carefree state.   
  
“Hands on the wheel,” Sam snapped. “God, you are such an asshole. How are we even _related_?”   
  
“A question I ask myself every day, Sammy boy,” Dean retorted, bitterly. “Cas must have been hangin’ out with you too much, since now he seems to think I have some of your Gay - “   
  
“Dean, for cryin’ out loud!” Sam had That Look on his face, the one that made Dean suddenly very glad he was driving, since that was about the only time the Look didn’t end in violence. “I don’t have any Gay. _You_ , on the other hand - “ He snorted. Again. Sam tended to overdo the snorting. “I don’t know why you’re such a freaking homophobe.”   
  
Dean blinked. “Uh, what the fuck, Sam?”   
  
“You’re denying that you’re a homophobe?”   
  
“I’m denying that I’m _gay_ ,” Dean clarified, swinging the car around hard into the motel parking lot. Dean was about as far from gay as it was possible to _get_. Dean was a goddamn _Casanova_ , and a fricking monk like Sam had no business making allegations like that, not when he’d watched Dean charming his way into several pairs of panties a _week_ for most of his life.   
  
Sam sucked his lips in, but didn’t say anything.   
  
That was disturbing.   
  
“Okay, that’s disturbing,” Dean said, turning the engine off. “You just gonna sit there?”   
  
Sam shrugged. “I don’t know, Dean. You just gonna let Cas mope all over you while you indulge your socially retarded bigotry instead of just giving in to the fact that you’re completely gone on him?”   
  
Dean blinked rapidly for a minute. “My _what_ , now? I’m _what_?”   
  
“You heard me,” Sam said, unfolding his ridiculously lanky self from the car, complete with laptop, and slamming the door. Dean followed, hastily, mind swimming under the onslaught of all this ridiculousness.   
  
“Yeah, I _heard_ you,” he conceded, “I just - I - _what_ , now? What did he _say_ to you?”   
  
Sam shook his head, and started striding off in the direction of the motel, which was, just, _completely_ unfair, since Sam at full stride required Dean to trot along behind like a little kid. Freakin’ Sasquatch. Like Dean didn’t feel small enough already tonight.   
  
“Sam!” he bellowed, picking up his pace. “Sam!”   
  
“He didn’t _say_ anything, Dean,” Sam snapped back over his shoulder. “It was more the way he came out of the bar looking like he wanted to brain you.” He flailed the hand that wasn’t clutching the laptop. “And then he went all sad and slumpy, and then he vanished. It’s not rocket science, Dean. And since you’ve been in love with him for _months_ , I really don’t get what your problem is.”   
  
“In - ?” Okay, that was _it_. Dean darted forward, clutching at Sam’s shoulder, and spun him around. “Sammy, where is this even _coming_ from? He’s - a _guy_. And I don’t - “   
  
“You don’t let yourself have anything you want, Dean,” Sam said, softly, now. And, oh, man, his face had gone all sensitive, the puppy eyes coming out, and just. “You’re so used to judging yourself based on what you _think_ other people want from you, what they’re gonna think of you, you can’t just - and the way you look at him - “ Sam broke off, face twisting as if he just couldn’t find the words, which was pretty remarkable for Sam. “I’ve never seen you look at anyone like that, Dean.”  
  
Dean stared at him. “Sam...” He trailed off. Sam looked so earnest, so wide-eyed and pleading, and Dean had never been able to resist that look on Sammy’s face. _Or on Cas’s_ , said some treacherous part of his brain. “Sam, I just - I mean, he’s a _guy_ , for God’s sake.”   
  
“He’s an _angel_ ,” Sam corrected, voice suddenly fierce. “He’s _your_ angel; he _pulled you out of hell_ , Dean. You’re here because of him. And everything he’s going through right now, he’s going through it for _you_. You already have his freaking handprint burned into your shoulder; you’re already closer to him than you’ve ever been to anyone but me in your whole damn _life_ , but you’re so freaking scared to step out of your little macho box that the thought of what it would make you if you touched another guy’s dick is stopping you from getting it together with the only person I’ve _ever_ seen you fall in love with.” Sam shook his head, slowly, just staring Dean down. Dean felt his eyes watering with the pressure of trying not to look away.   
  
“We’re in the middle of the apocalypse,” Sam said, quietly. “Just - get some perspective, Dean, okay? Jesus.”   
  
And, just like that, he extricated his shoulder from Dean’s stunned-slack fingers and walked away, leaving Dean alone and _completely_ fucking confused in the empty parking lot.   
  
“Bitch,” Dean muttered, under his breath. There was an empty beer bottle lying in the road; the weird hollow feeling in his ribcage told him it might be satisfying to give it a good kick.   
  
In the event, it didn’t really seem to have much effect. The feeling was still there, tightening around his ribs, dark and intangible as smoke.   
  
Fucking _Sam_. Dean _hated_ feeling guilty.   
  
*  
  
The bitch of it was, of course, that once the idea was in his head, he couldn’t seem to stop needling at it, nudging at it like a really fucking inconvenient loose tooth. It was true, after all, that from the moment Cas had shown up, he’d somehow started to worm his way under Dean’s skin in a way that had surely only been possible because Cas had put that goddamn skin on him himself; gotten inside him where only Sam had ever been.   
  
And - yeah, okay, so that thought sent his mind spinning off on tangents involving Cas being inside him in ways that Sam had most _definitely_ never been, and his face might have scrunched up in an appropriate expression of anticipatory discomfort, but the truth of it was that he didn’t really - _feel_ it.   
  
And that was weird.   
  
Cas just wasn’t _like_ other people. Which, of course, was partly because he wasn’t a person at all; but maybe there _was_ more to it than that. Possibly something to do with the way Dean’s heart clenched a little bit when Castiel showed up unexpectedly, or the way his stomach dipped when he _didn’t_ show up as planned. The way that, when Cas looked at him, Dean sometimes felt like he was looking right _through_ him and he didn’t even care - hell, he even _wanted_ it, felt warmed all over by it like it was just Cas again, seeing right inside of him the way he always did, ‘cause Cas knew every part of him already. The way Dean’s pulse always skipped uncertainly when Cas looked unsure, or worried, or unhappy, as if he, Dean Winchester, hell-tarnished high-school dropout Dean Winchester, could actually do _anything_ to protect a motherfucking Angel of the Lord.   
  
And then, okay, there might have been the fact that Dean’s distaste for Cas’s habit of standing too close was as much about the troubling reaction it provoked as about any concern for what anyone else might think.   
  
Dean thought about what Sam had said, about Cas stomping out of the bar all slumpy and sad. The feeling in his chest responded, as if on cue, with a little protective twitch of anxiety.   
  
_Fuck_.   
  
The bitch of Sam was that he was so frequently _right_. It was getting pretty old.   
  
Cas had better have zapped back to his room, was all. Dean might have been feeling generous right now, but how long that would last was anyone’s guess.   
  
He sighed heavily and set off to investigate, shoulders back and face set like flint.   
  
*   
Castiel had, it transpired, zapped back to his room.   
  
Oh, it wasn’t as if he opened up at the first rap of Dean’s knuckles, all breezy smiles and rainbows and stars in his eyes; but Dean had hardly expected that. Apart from anything else, he’d probably have assumed some kind of possession around about the time the rainbows showed up. Still, Dean had spent the better part of his life scouting around for things that didn’t want to be found, and he knew when a room was empty. This one? Wasn’t.   
  
“ _Cas_.” He raised his voice a little, gruff and peremptory, but there was an apologetic note wavering in it. He tapped on the door again. “Come on, Cas, let me in. I only want to talk to you.”   
  
The silence from within the room went on, heavy with that indefinable quality that made it unmistakably an inhabited stillness, shifting rhythmically like breathing. Dean sighed. “Cas. Please.” He paused, throat working; took a deep breath. “Look, I want - I came to, you know. Apologise.”   
  
Silence. Dean chewed his lip, and contemplated other options. There was always busting in through the window, but he wasn’t sure how well Cas would take to that, and he didn’t really want to end the night with a black eye, or worse. Other than that -   
  
“For what?”   
  
Dean, caught unawares by the abrupt forward motion of the surface against which he had been half-leaning, pitched forward into the room, along with the door. He blinked down at the bland, unshined surface of Cas’s shoes for a moment. Then, slowly, he raised his eyes. “Huh?”   
  
“Up.” Castiel’s grip was less than gentle, fingers digging strong and uncareful into his armpit as he hauled him to his feet. Dean allowed himself to be hauled. It didn’t feel as if he had much choice in the matter.   
  
Castiel crossed his arms - God only knew who had taught him _that_ \- and raised an eyebrow. “You want to apologise for what, Dean?”   
  
Dean sighed, eyes casting to and fro over the lurid banality of the motel room for something, anything to latch onto, something to make this easier, but there was nothing. Of course. With his eyes fixed upon the hideous paisley-patterned comforter, he got out, “Well, just - for - things. You know. For _everything_ , Cas.”   
  
Silence. Turn again, Winchester. Dean fumbled for the words, but it was kind of hard to think with Cas _staring_ at him like that, his stance sceptical and his blue eyes steady and unyielding. Something leaped way deep in his gut, some tiny flare of heat. Dean didn’t want to go anywhere _near_ all the issues there were under that. Especially not when Cas was waiting for his explanation, wearing a face that meant business.   
  
Tentatively, he tried again. “It’s, uh. It’s come to my attention that I’ve been being kind of an ass.”   
  
Cas tilted his head approvingly, the other eyebrow coming up to join the first. “Go on.”   
  
Dean sighed. “Look, I never meant to make you uncomfortable, okay? I shouldn’t have teased you. I know how hard all this shit must be for you - well, no, all right: actually, I can’t even _begin_ to understand how fucking difficult it must be, and I - “ He broke off, palms turned out in surrender. “Man, I suck at this. I just - I’m _sorry_ , Cas. Hell, I know it’s hard enough to be human even when you were born that way, and you - “   
  
“I’m falling,” Cas cut in. His voice was soft, but there was a certainty to it, some awful note of finality that made Dean’s stomach turn over, clenching in on itsef in sympathy. Castiel smiled, a tiny, wistful little thing that tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I’m falling, Dean. Not the way Anna fell, but - “ He shook his head. “There is no other viable explanation. Angels do not need to - to _shave_ , or shower, or satisfy the human urges of the flesh. We don’t have to - _shouldn’t_ have to - put up with all the crap you people wade through on a daily basis, like - like _table manners_ , and tiny little bottles of shampoo that don’t hold enough for a proper wash, and cold French fries, and - and ridiculous unrequited romantic impulses a thirteen-year-old girl would be ashamed of.”   
  
Dean swallowed, thick and painful at the back of his throat. Cas’s eyes were on his, although Dean knew it must be costing him dearly to maintain that contact, even as his voice grew rough with frustration, ash over charcoal. He opened his mouth, but Cas shook his head; dropped his eyes, at last.   
  
“Last week,” he went on, quietly, “when it rained so much - I was _soaked_.” His voice cracked, incredulous, offended. “The rain got - _everywhere_ \- inside my collar and all up and down my arms through my clothes and it felt _disgusting_. I hate being wet. And I hate that pain in the pit of my stomach like there are _animals_ in there, wanting to be fed; it makes you _ridiculous_ , Dean, to be hungry. To want. It’s not _fair_. But that - that’s the problem with being human, isn’t it?” Cas laughed softly, humorlessly. “Things are - confusing - and unpredictable - and this, all the ridiculous inconveniences and the stupid fucking _feelings_ , are happening to me because of you, Dean; but when it comes down to it, you don’t want me, and I don’t want _this_ , and -”   
  
If anyone had asked Dean when it was that he moved, or why, he would have been hard-pressed to give an answer, beyond the fact that there was something open and naked in Cas’s face that he couldn’t stand; something raw in his voice that he couldn’t stop, and that this was somehow, suddenly, completely unacceptable. But the next thing he knew, Cas wasn’t talking any more - just staring at him, wide-eyed and unblinking, his lower lip just a little damp where Dean’s had caught it.   
  
“What was that?” Cas asked, softly.   
  
It was on the tip of Dean’s tongue - ridiculously, and totally inappropriately - to say _a thimble_ , remembering that one summer in Maine when he was six years old and Dad had read them _Peter Pan_ , back when he was still pretending to be an ordinary Dad, occasionally. But Cas was fucking _pressed up against him_ , warm and solid and his _fucking breath_ was on _Dean’s fucking mouth_ , and “yeah, I - I got nothing,” Dean stammered.   
  
“Ah,” said Castiel.   
  
“Yeah,” said Dean. And then, right when he was considering how best to get his limbs untangled from the unnervingly _right_ -feeling shape of Cas in his arms, his hands started _pushing Cas’s stupid trench-coat off his shoulders_ , completely without Dean’s permission. Cas was breathing tight and shivery against Dean’s cheek, and there were goosepimples spreading like brushfire down his neck; and then Cas’s fingers were on the buttons of Dean’s overshirt and at that point it kind of became obvious what ‘this’ was; only the next second, Dean was on the bed with Cas on top of him, and there was so much going on, there wasn’t room for even a little bit of panic.   
  
Not for the first time, Dean vaguely wished his repertoire of curses and exclamations consisted of a little more than base blasphemy, because _holy fuck_ , he was sprawled on a bed with his hips pressed flush to an angel’s, and _Jesus wept_ , he had no appropriate words for this. For a guy who’d only just discovered the primary function of his junk, Cas certainly didn’t seem to be holding back. Dean wasn’t much for deflowering virgins; had never really understood the fascination some guys had with prude chicks and their inexpert fumbling, but there was nothing hesitant about Cas right now, his hands slipping reckless and certain underneath Dean’s t-shirt, pushing it up and off. If this was what it was all about - the heady, adreno-junkie ratcheting of Castiel’s breath; the steady, impatient, _wanton_ shifting of his hips - then maybe Dean could actually get behind that. With the value of ‘maybe’ in this context being: _whenever I get over the fact that there’s an_ angel _sucking on my neck._  
  
“Whoah,” Dean managed, ducking out of range of Cas’s mouth, fingers curling instinctively around his elbows. “Slow down, cowboy. We’re not running in the Derby, here.”   
  
Above him, Cas’s eyes were wide and curious, pupils blown black and spreading into the blue. Dean resolutely ignored the way his pulse leaped in his throat, thrumming palpably under his jaw, but something about the way Cas’s mouth quirked, corners of it twitching, told him his interest in proceedings hadn’t gone unnoticed.   
  
“Oh,” said Cas, and fucked if the Sex Voice didn’t have a goddamn additional Sex Register. Dean wouldn’t have thought it possible, before he’d ended up -   
  
“What exactly _are_ we doing here, Dean?”   
  
_fucking hell_ , in bed with a soldier of Heaven.   
  
(Seriously. His _kingdom_ for one little non-blasphemous fucking curse.)   
  
“Uh,” said Dean. He smiled a little, shoulders twitching in a shrug. “I guess we’re committing some kinda mortal sin, huh?”   
  
Castiel’s fingers - which had, up to this point, been tracing idle little circles on the exposed skin of Dean’s belly, mindless of the restraining pressure of Dean’s hands on his arms - paused in their ministrations. His eyes found Dean’s, inner corners of his eyebrows drawing together. It was not the look of someone who appreciated the joke, and Dean felt his stomach dip a little.   
  
“You guess so, do you? A mortal sin?” Cas’s voice was low in the back of his throat, the pull of it curling around the clench of uncertainty in the pit of Dean’s stomach. “Do you commit this act with deliberate and complete consent, Dean? With full knowledge of the sin and its gravity?”   
  
The nape of Dean’s neck prickled with sweat, now; his hands, on Cas’s elbows, felt oddly numb. The fact that the insistent pressure in his cock hadn’t abated in the slightest was only the tin hat on how fucked up this whole thing clearly was. “I - “   
  
There had been words in him somewhere; apologies, coiled hesitant under his tongue. But in the moment between thought and speech, Cas moved like the grace of God, arms breaking free of Dean’s grip gone slack, pressing his hands up and over his head. His eyes burned blue fire into Dean’s, breath rough and quickening on Dean’s mouth, and Dean was absolutely not responsible for the way his lips parted on instinct, with Cas so close that he _felt_ the formations of his words. “What is the sin, Dean?” Brief catch of teeth to Dean’s lower lip, unrelenting. “Say it.”   
  
And fuck, holy fuck, there was really no avoiding it now; the carnality of this, Cas’s slick open mouth over his own; the heat of their cocks together through the barrier of fabric. “ _Sex_ ,” Dean spat, raising his chin so that their lips brushed with the word. Sex in his mouth, on Cas’s, inside and between them. “We’re talking about sex, all right? I’m a big boy, Cas; I know a helluva lot more about it than you do, even if I’ve never done the dirty with a guy before.” He laughed harshly. “Or, you know. An angel.”   
  
Cas raised his eyebrows, unmoving for a span of seconds. Then, without warning, he thrust downward from the pelvis, the spark of contact breaking sharply enough that Dean cried out. Cas caught the sound as if he had been waiting for it, swallowing it soft and certain; licked the echoes of it gently from Dean’s lower lip. “Sex,” Cas said, into the darkness between Dean’s parted lips, “is not an offence, Dean. Not like this.” His fingers traced the sharp promontory of Dean’s clavicle; the smooth curve of his shoulder.   
  
“Oh, it isn’t?” Turned out speech was a little beyond Dean, and given that they hadn’t even fucking _kissed_ properly, that was about four parts embarrassing and six parts really fucking interesting, even though it probably shouldn’t be. “So...God thinks gay interspecies sex is made of rainbows and kittens? Seriously?”   
  
He was trying to be reasonable; honestly. He _was_. But Cas was shifting, now, damp open mouth retracing the path his fingers had tracked across the sensitive line of Dean’s collarbone, and Dean was finding it hard to breathe, let alone maintain a theological position.   
  
“God,” Castiel said, sounding way calmer than he had any right to, “condemns sexual behaviour that results in injury to an innocent person. Adulterous fornication. Obsessive covetousness. Coerced congress.” His tongue curled into the dip between Dean’s chest and his shoulder; flicked at the soft skin at the juncture of arm and torso. “Sleeping with cheerleaders too intoxicated to exercise rational judgment. This - “ and okay, Dean shouldn’t be writhing quite this much because of how good Cas’s mouth felt skirting his _armpit_ , for crying out loud “ - is none of those things. It will cause no injury.” He paused, raising his eyes to Dean’s. “Provided that you want it.”   
  
There should, Dean was sure, have been more of a question there, about whether he really wanted to have it on his already-overburdened conscience that he’d taken an angel’s virginity; hell, about whether he really wanted to go there with a _guy_ when he’d never in his life been tempted to so much as a circle-jerk. But Cas was so fucking - _Cas_ \- all spitslick lips and hair that cried out to be tugged; warm and wanting and dammit, Dean didn’t even care any more. Cas wanted this, Dean wasn’t going to protest. Whatever else he was, Cas was fucking _hot_ , and Dean was more than capable of putting aside his difficulties for the sake of The Moment. Besides, Cas had a hell of a mouth on him, soft and pink as a chick’s, and the fact that nobody had molested it yet was a _crime_.   
  
“Fuck, yes,” Dean ground out, rocking up slow against Cas, “I want it. Want, anything you want.” He meant it, too, in that moment, heat sluicing over him in the aftermath of his words like affirmation. Cas’s eyes darkened over him, flare of his pupils immediate and obvious and unmistakable, and that was just _it_ , Cas’s body betraying him in ways he probably wasn’t even aware of. The strangled sound at the back of his throat; the way his breath quickened and the way Cas, unabashed, just _let_ it: Dean wanted more of that, and he was pretty sure, suddenly, that he’d do anything to get it. So fucking sexy, Cas shivering finely just at the _thought_ of being able to use Dean the way he wanted, and the fact that Dean had no idea what filth might be running through Cas’s mind should probably disturb him more than it did. For some reason, his body seemed to feel - viscerally, and with earnest, breathless emphasis - that this just made the whole damn situation hotter.   
  
“Anything,” Cas breathed, in a voice like molasses, and Dean watched the word forming as if in slow motion; watched the subtle interplay of tongue and teeth and lips, all the intricate workings that ran behind so simple a thing as speech. Cas was sex-flushed already, the force of his wanting spreading pink and hot across his cheekbones, and Dean was stricken with the urge to see if he was one of those people who blushed deliciously all over. They were both wearing far too many fucking clothes, and Dean felt the barrier keenly, too much friction against his skin.   
  
“Anything you want,” he repeated, shifting a little, “provided we get out of all this crap first, huh?” He tugged at the hem of Cas’s shirt. “Too hot in here already; I don’t want to die of heatstroke before I get off.” He felt a little flush of heat in his own face, then; hoped it wouldn’t visible. “Besides, I kind of want to actually touch you. You’ll like it. Promise.”   
  
He’d expected, maybe, some kind of protest; possibly even a blank look or two, but apparently, Cas was down with the whole nakedness gig. He pulled himself up without a word, sitting back on Dean’s hips, and holy crap, it was just _wrong_ how much Dean liked looking up at him like that, watching his fingers slip on buttons; more haste, less fucking speed, but his impatience was too gorgeous to interrupt. Three buttons unfastened, a fourth _torn off_ , and Cas was hauling his shirt up over his head; the t-shirt followed, tossed to the floor like debris. His hair was a dark sheaf of spikes in the aftermath of his eagerness, and oh, yes, the flush went _all_ the way down. His breath came quickly, chest heaving with it, eyes devil-dark and sex-wild on Dean’s. Dean bit his lip on a sound, and pulled him down.   
  
Cas came willingly, hips rocking half-consciously against Dean’s as he moved. Dean steadied him, palming the smooth skin of his back, hands sliding upward to find purchase in the tousled mess of his hair. It was intoxicating, the way his skin leaped under every touch, breath skittering hot against Dean’s cheek, and Dean wanted more of it; wanted everything. He fisted his hands in Cas’s hair at the back of his head, where it was thickest, forcing their mouths together. “Like this,” he breathed; traced the seam of Cas’s lips with his tongue; took Cas’s whimper as invitation to curve inside. Cas squirmed against him, his mouth unpractised and wanting, and Dean rode a wave of heat upward, sucking Cas’s lower lip gently between both his own. That occasioned another whimper, a high-pitched sound that intensified as Dean flicked his tongue gently against Cas’s mouth; ended in a broken breath as Dean’s teeth closed sharp on softness.   
  
“Fuck,” Dean panted, hands slipping out of Cas’s hair in search of other little sounds, the way his breath caught as Dean’s thumb brushed over a nipple; the way his hips thrust forward, sudden and fierce and desperate, as Dean’s hands ghosted under the waistband of his trousers. The whole of Cas trembled finely against him, mouth opening instinctively to Dean’s tongue, and it was hot as fuck, knowing that he was the first to do this; first to lick deep to the back of Cas’s mouth, first to receive Cas’s strengthening kisses as he learned them. Both of Cas’s hands were curled around Dean’s face, now, thumbs stroking over his jaw, fingers digging into the soft hair at the nape of his neck, and Dean raised his chin to press deeper into the kiss, bucking involuntarily as Cas’s lips sealed over his tongue and sucked. Christ, he learned fast.   
  
It should have been weird, really, the smooth hard planes of this body pressed to his own, but Dean’s skin was thrumming happily everywhere it touched Cas’s, completely unconcerned by the lack of curves. His cock strained urgently against the zipper of his jeans, demanding further contact, and Dean was far too sex-hazed by this juncture to question the fact that he really, _really_ wanted to see Cas’s face when Dean thumbed the slickness from his dick. Cas, judging by the way he was grinding his hips downward with every press of his tongue, didn’t seem likely to object.   
  
Dean was always quick with his fingers, but never more so than when the promise of sex stood as incentive, and he managed their fastenings easily: his own, first, Levi’s-simple, and then Cas’s, where disuse had made the zipper a little stiff. Beneath his hand, Cas was stiff, too, the heat of him shoving upward so insistently that the teeth of the zipper splayed the rest of the way open under its pressure. Cas groaned into Dean’s mouth, as if that sensation of relief was too much for him, and Dean closed his eyes tightly, grappling mentally for something to ward off a sudden crest of want. 4, 8, 12, 16; mental arithmetic wasn’t a strong point of Dean’s, and the counting let him steady himself enough to work Cas out of his pants and underwear without coming spontaneously in his fucking jeans. “I got you,” he murmured, nonsensical, instinctive, shoving trousers and underwear down over Cas’s hips; steadying him with one hand on the jut of his pelvis as he wriggled out of his own jeans and kicked them off. “C’mon, Cas; I got you. I got you. _Fuck_.”   
  
The sudden heat of their cocks together forced the exclamation out of him; through a rush of arousal, he heard Cas cry out, and bit his lip on his own sounds, wanting to hear him, startled by discovery, ignorant of any kind of shame that might come with abandon. Cas was slick, fuck, _leaking_ , the head of his cock slipping in its own wetness as he thrust down against Dean’s belly. It felt good, more than good, this sweat-sticky sliding of their bodies against each other, but this was Cas, Cas who put Dean back together, slicking little pulses of pre-come all over Dean’s stomach. This was _Cas_ , who put Dean back together, and _fuck_ , but Dean wanted desperately to take Cas apart.   
  
Above him, Cas rose ecstatic, transcendent. His hands were bruisingly tight on the anchor of Dean’s pelvis, head thrown back as he fucked into the haven of his groin. Dean pulled up his knees, making a channel between pelvis and thigh into which Cas slid easily, mindless and sticky and quick. Words emerged, gravelled, half-heard between gasps.   
  
It was in the back of Dean’s mind that he should make a move of some sort, soon; some kind of intervention whose end result would be Cas on his back, legs splayed to accommodate Dean between them. Somehow, though, it was difficult to find the right moment, Cas soft-eyed and transfixed above him, every sound he made too addictive, too captivating to interrupt. Cas was moving on instinct, now, on faith, mouth descending to lave the hollow of Dean’s throat, tonguing down to his nipple. Dean swallowed back a cry, fingers clenching too tight in Cas’s hair, hips jerking helplessly against him. Cas hummed deep and soft against his skin, a slow reverberation that crackled out in ripples like waves of heat from a fire, like he _wanted_ this. Like he was _learning_ Dean, loving the salt-sharp taste of him, and Dean forgot all his reasons for wanting to wrench back control of this; lost them to the sound of Cas’s pleasure in his creation; to the way he seemed to know Dean’s body and its triggers already.   
  
“Holy fuck, Cas,” he rasped out, watching that mouth tongue shining trails down his chest. “Oh, _fuck_.” His stomach leaped to the scrape of Cas’s teeth. “Where - ?”   
  
“I _know_ you, Dean,” Cas said softly, licking a broad swipe of wet over the shallow dip between Dean’s hipbones; lowering his head to ( _fuck_ ) nose at his hair. His thumbs traced the insides of Dean’s thighs, fine-scraped lines of want roiling in their wake, and Dean twisted, hips torquing, jolting at the touch. “My theoretical knowledge of you was already immense.” He rubbed his mouth slackly against the inside of Dean’s thigh, damp against the smooth skin, fucking _tease_. “It only remained to apply that knowledge practically.”   
  
Dean was barely even surprised to discover, when he opened his mouth to speak, that he was struggling for breath, all concentration lost to that kiss-bitten mouth between his legs, the dark shock of Cas’s hair where Dean’s fingers had mussed it. “Oh, yeah?” The line of Cas’s jaw glistened damply, whether from his own saliva or from the slick mess of precome pooled on Dean’s stomach, Dean didn’t know, but his stomach seized up at the realisation, nonetheless. “So - how were you gonna apply it?”   
  
For a long moment of stillness, Cas held his eyes. Dean felt himself blushing, the diffuse heat of that blue gaze spreading up his body in waves, but he couldn’t - physically _couldn’t_ \- look away. His fingers curled around the sharp line of Cas’s jaw, trailing through the wetness. Cas’s head tilted into the touch like a cat’s, nuzzling into Dean’s palm; tonguing rough and gentle at Dean’s fingertips, and Dean was absolutely fucking _not_ responsible for the low groan that escaped him at that touch, especially not when Cas echoed it around his fingers. “Cas,” he managed, pointlessly and soft.  
  
And then Cas was pulling away, last deft flick to the tips of Dean’s fingers as he spread Dean’s thighs with his palms, gently sure. Dean would have protested at that - because Jesus Christ, whatever reading material Cas had internalised, he was _not_ a fucking _girl_ , here - except that Cas’s mouth was on his balls before he had time to draw breath; behind them, a moment later, pushing Dean’s thighs up in search of better access, and holy - holy _fuck_.   
  
“Holy _fuck_ , Cas,” said Dean.   
  
Dean realised, belatedly, that he’d given Cas kind of the perfect set up for a great line, right there, but apparently Cas hadn’t been putting in enough hours watching _Casa Erotica_ , because all he said was “Dean”, and then nosed back a little further between Dean’s legs. And - that was - oh, man, that was just - unexpectedly fucking _amazing_ , apparently, although he was damned if he knew what had possessed Cas to do it, lifting Dean by the hips, cradling the small of his back as he circled his tongue (his fucking _tongue_ ) around the core of him. Dean threw his head back, couldn’t help it; back arching up off the mattress, legs coming naturally to rest over Cas’s shoulders. On the one hand, the whole idea of what Cas was doing to him was like something out of a goddamn House of Horrors, dirty and wrong and probably seventy kinds of unhygienic; but, on the other, Dean was spreading like a five dollar whore for it, and that was embarrassing as hell, but it was also really _really_ fucking good. Cas’s tongue was all - hot and slick and wet and strong and _flexible_ , flickering back and forth over him, circling again and then pressing (jesus _christ_ almighty) inside of him, and yeah, Dean had nothing in his book on this. If it felt this good, this ridiculously, spine-meltingly, holy-crap-I’m-gonna-come-untouched good to have someone’s tongue in his fucking _ass_ , then there was obviously a whole new world of sex that he shouldn’t have dismissed the way he had.   
  
“Cas,” he managed, tugging on Cas’s hair, “Cas, _Jesus_ \- what are you - “ and there it was, the white rush of it coursing through his veins, muscles clenching in anticipation and “ _fuck_ , Cas, ‘mgonna, you gotta fucking _stop_.”   
  
He was so close, so unexpectedly, skin-tinglingly close, that his body apparently didn’t expect Cas to actually obey Dean’s orders; clenched up in disappointment when Cas pulled away, and, yeah, probably that whining sound had actually come out of Dean’s mouth. When he managed to swallow the overwhelming sensation of being stranded on the edge of a precipice, he forced his eyes open; caught sight of Cas’s face, flushed and pleased and satisfied.   
  
“I _know_ you, Dean,” Cas said, and lowered Dean’s hips to the bed.   
  
And it seemed only natural, after that, to submit to Cas’s divine and infallible judgment; to roll his hips up dreamily at the insistence of Cas’s fingers. He would have questioned it, maybe, ten minutes ago, before Cas melted his brain to mush, but now he was nothing but this breathless, wanting thing, everything in him straining towards Cas and the benediction of his hands. He was still Dean Winchester, goddammit, even if he couldn’t quite bite back a whimper as Cas breached him with fingers slicked from the leaking head of his cock; as Cas’s mouth brushed open and curious against the base of the shaft. His fingers were fisted, immovable, in Cas’s soft hair, clinging to sanity, and Cas moaned against him as he tugged; scissored his fingers; thrust them deep.   
  
And - yeah, okay, if Cas wanted to lose his fucking virginity properly, he was going to have to stop _drawing it out_ , because Dean? Wasn’t made of fucking stone. Apparently the whole prostate thing was, actually, _everything_ it had been cracked up to be, Dean’s body spasming in reaction as Cas’s fingers found it. If Cas kept this up, Dean was gonna come like a fucking freight train, and he didn’t want to do it on his own.   
  
“ _Cas -_ ” he fumbled for Cas’s wrist, tugging; pushed at the sweat-damp skin of his naked shoulders. Cas looked up at him, dark-eyed, uncomprehending, and Dean sighed, fumbling for the words. “You gotta stop - not _stop_ -stop, but - oh, man -” He tugged at Cas’s shoulders: _don’t make me fucking say it_.   
  
And then, yeah, apparently Cas got the general idea, thank fuck, because Dean really didn’t think he could force out the words _want you to fuck me_ , even though his body was pretty clear on the matter. He let his thighs part as Cas’s hands directed, making room for him; pulled Cas’s face back to his by the back of the neck.   
  
“Dean,” Cas murmured, loose and wavering, cock pressing bluntly (holy fuck, holy _fuck_ what was he doing?) between Dean’s legs. And that - yeah, okay; Dean wasn’t interested in words right now, not with his whole body clenching and unclenching, _wanting_ , wanting everything except words that he’d have to _think_ about.   
  
“Yeah,” he managed, hooking a leg over Cas’s waist, “yeah, I got you, Cas; just fucking - just, come on,” and he thrust up, taking Cas in, sheathing the head of him.   
  
The sound Cas made was worth the minor discomfort, no fucking _question_. It burned, sure, because hey, a sizable thing in your ass basically wasn’t going to feel like anything other than an intrusion till it hit the happy spot, and Cas wasn’t there yet. But Cas was whimpering, low and constant in the back of his throat; a soft sound that got louder as Dean shifted, inching upward, taking Cas slow. Cas held himself very still, suddenly uncertain after all that knowing, but his whole body was shaking with the effort of it, and stillness wasn’t what either of them wanted right now. Dean pressed his heel into the small of Cas’s back; rocked his hips. “C’mon,” he wrenched out, screwed tight and breathless in his throat. “S’okay; c’mon, move. I want to feel you.”   
  
And that, it seemed, was all Cas had been waiting for, or possibly more like all that he could take, because the next thing Dean knew was a strangled shout as Cas broke over him like a wave. He was flushed, relentless, hips pistoning rough and unschooled and it _hurt_ , but the pinnacle of every stroke was that rush of starfire, spiralling out from the core of him, and Cas’s voice, uplifted, startled by the joy of it. There was no restraint in him, no years and years of caution born of jerking off with his brother eighteen inches away. There was only the wanting, the tumultuous thrusting of his hips; the keening rise and fall of his voice, licentious and _good_. Dean felt he could have come just from that, from the unbridled heat of him; except Cas was undoing him all over again, from the inside out, so he guessed they’d never know.   
  
Except that - yeah, there was no way this was gonna be a one-time thing. Cas was close, now, Dean was sure of it; moaning in his ear and stuttering his hips, and Dean was so far beyond close, he would probably have been blind with it if he hadn’t needed so much to _see_ this, to watch Cas’s face as he came. It was addictive, ridiculous; and trust the fucking Winchesters to end up this way, one brother high on demon blood and the other prostrate and helpless before fucking angel sex-noises, but he couldn’t _help_ it. Cas was slamming into him, now, cries ratcheting high enough that the goddamn chick at the front desk probably knew the score by now, even without the staccato rapping of the headboard against the wall, and Dean didn’t even _care_. His muscles burned with effort, thighs aching with the effort of keeping them spread, wide and splayed around Cas’s body, but Cas was stilling, eyes screwing tight against some invisible force, and Dean half-expected him to explode in a blaze of glory, white light shooting from his eyes and his mouth and the pores of his fucking perfect skin. Except that, of course, the white light was only in Dean’s head as he seized up around Cas, and the only thing that pulsed out of Castiel was copious amounts of come, which - yes, okay, so Dean probably should have remembered about condoms. Even if Cas was, _had_ been, would never be again, a virgin, and Dean had just come so hard he couldn’t fucking _see_.   
  
Castiel came down slowly, his mouth open and slack on Dean’s shoulder as he struggled for breath, his skin sticky-slick against Dean’s. Dean gave him a second before he pushed at him limply with what remained of his strength, because, yes, thigh-burn; and Cas slipped out like something too spent ever to move again. Dean didn’t think this was too much of a problem, since he didn’t foresee himself moving for the next hundred years, either. He shifted, turned himself half onto his side; slung his leg over Cas’s in a move he would never admit to once the euphoria wore off. Breathed. Cas breathed with him, damp and human and hot against Dean’s mouth. Dean felt vaguely, idly, as if something should be said to mark the occasion; like he should reassure Cas, somehow, or congratulate him. Or - _something_ , he should say _something_.   
  
He opened his mouth, drowsy and sated and absolutely lacking in any inspiration.   
  
“Fuck,” said Castiel against Dean’s cheek.   
  
For a moment, Dean was stunned into silence. And then he was laughing, ridiculously, hysterically, because yeah, okay, yes, that just about covered it, and he didn’t exactly have anything to add.   
  
_Fuck_.   
  
*   
In Sam’s experience, Dean was often pretty slow on the uptake, particularly where people’s feelings were involved. It wasn’t that Dean was _shallow_ \- hell, Sam knew better than anyone that Dean loved, if anything, too loyally and too hard; divided himself up for the people he cared about in a way both admirable and terrifying. But when it came to _thinking_ about it - attempting to process any strong feeling less ingrained in Dean’s bones than _look after Sammy_ \- Dean was, frankly, less than useless. This whole Castiel business was a case in point, the two of them obviously so freakin’ meant for each other that Sam’s chest ached just _watching_ the way they looked at each other, and yet, Dean? Yeah. Oblivious.   
  
Fucking ridiculous, really.   
  
So, no, Sam didn’t really expect Dean to find his way through the tangled morass of all these nasty _feelings_ with any great speed, clear as Sam had been about his own thoughts on the matter. He had hope, of course, because Sam was a man of faith; he prayed that _some_ of what he said might have penetrated Dean’s thick skull, but he wasn’t expecting miracles.   
  
The sound of Cas screaming full pornosonic stereo through the wall, as far as Sam was concerned, kind of constituted a miracle.   
  
For a good thirty seconds, he was too shocked to do anything except stare at the plaster-thin wall in the direction of the sound, eyes wide, half-hearted research attempt forgotten. It didn’t help that the sound just kept on - and on - and _on_.   
  
“Jesus Christ,” Sam muttered, sympathetically, as the sound elapsed into a series of hiccoughing gasps. There was absolutely no mistaking what was happening, especially after Dean’s voice joined the chorus of serious happy noises. And that was kind of gross, but Sam was bigger than that. He could get over it. He’d done a full-on Pandarus job on these guys.   
  
Evidently, Sam Winchester was a god among men.   
  
He shook his head on a grin, turning his attention back to the laptop. Somehow, armed with this newfound knowledge of his monumental Yenta success, dragon lore seemed kind of irrelevant.   
  
He navigated to Google, thought for a minute, and then ran a search for ‘coming out cards’.   
  
There were ten pages of results. Next door, Cas was still screaming, and not in a way that promised speedy resolution.   
  
Maybe he’d go look through them at leisure in the car.   
  
*****


End file.
